The present invention relates to a method to precisely align a top-mounted weapon in an armored combat vehicle by means of a fire control system including an optical observation and aiming system after the target has been detected by the tank commander and taken over by the gunner using individually stabilized panoramic optical devices and to an apparatus for practicing the method.
This method is particularly suited for firearms but can also be used, under certain conditions, for remote controlled weapons.
Modern armored combat vehicles must satisfy the demand for a high probability of scoring a direct hit with the first shot, and thus rapidly destroying the enemy target, e.g., a tank, in order to reduce the danger to the armored combat vehicle itself. As a further feature to augment protection of the armored vehicle, it is necessary to be able to fight the enemy from a moving armored combat vehicle since a moving vehicle, particularly when it moves in a series of irregular forward movements and directions, is much harder to hit for the enemy. As an added passive protection for the crew of the armored combat vehicle, it is necessary that they be seated as low in the vehicle as possible behind the ballistic front armor of the vehicle hull and that the weapon be placed high on the armored combat vehicle, resulting in the provision of a top-mount.
The top-mount is elevatably mounted on a supporting arm which extends upwardly from the turret roof, which is at the same level as the roof of the hull, and which, together with the lower portion of the turret, i.e., the turret cradle, can be rotated about its azimuth axis. During movement of the vehicle, shocks from the uneven roadway subject this supporting arm to certain, though slight, elastic deformations due to the mass of the top-mount which is attached to its upper end, and these deformations adversely influence the direct hit probability if the target is observed by the gunner, or the vehicle commander, through stabilized panoramic optical devices which are accommodated in the roof of the lower turret portion.
In an attempt to reduce this adverse influence on the direct hit probability, it has been proposed to permanently connect a device, including a target telescope with a target marker and a television camera, to the weapon in the top-mount and to transmit the image from this target telescope via the television camera to a monitor in front of the gunner or vehicle commander. In this case the weapon is stabilized together with this device--here called the target television camera. However, since the target television camera is accommodated near the weapon high up in the armored combat vehicle, it is in greater danger of being hit than the lower disposed panoramic optical devices for the vehicle gunner and the vehicle commander. For this reason and to reduce the space requirement, the optical portion of the target television camera has a viewing aperture with a smaller diameter, i.e., less light-transmission, than that of the panoramic optical devices. Therefore, and since for economic reasons the television transmission from the target camera to the monitor is made only in black and white, the gunner is less able to make out a target assigned to him by the commander by means of the target television camera than in his panoramic optical device which operates purely optically and thus in color. In addition, the target television camera has a smaller field of vision than the panoramic optical device which generally is also switchable to a smaller enlargement with a correspondingly larger field of vision. The latter advantages of the panoramic optical device compared to the target television camera for the target detection also remain if the panoramic optical device, for example, in order to increase its output at dusk or dawn or when the gunner can no longer look through the viewer of the optical channel of his panoramic optical device because of too heavy shocks to the vehicle, is provided with an additional television camera and is switched to television transmission to the monitor, although the picture viewed in this case is also only black and white.
In conventional turret tanks in which the above-mentioned target television camera is not provided, the panoramic optical devices serve as observation as well as firing aids. The panoramic optical devices are individually stabilized with the aid of gyro packets attached thereto. The weapon is also individually stabilized with the aid of its own gyro packet, independent of the optic stabilization. During observation, the commander and the gunner each guide their own individually stabilized panoramic optical device by means of appropriate control signals which they transmit by means of their respective steering sticks to the stabilization mechanisms for the respective optics. During this time, the alignment of the weapon is immaterial, i.e., it is pointed somewhere under its own stabilization control. In order to hit a target, the crew member involved, preferably the gunner, takes over control of movement of the weapon and aligns it with his panoramic optical device so that the weapon follows the primarily stabilized panoramic optical device. The drawback in this case is that the stabilization error which is already present for the panoramic optical device is increased by the additional follow-up error of the weapon. During the observation phase through the panoramic optical device this procedure can also be applied for a top-mounted weapon. However, conditions are different for aiming such a weapon with a target television camera which is then stabilized together with the weapon only through the panoramic optical device which is now not being used by the gunner, i.e., the gunner is now observing the target via the target television camera.
German Pat. No. 1,913,406, issued Nov. 22, 1973, discloses a fire control system for combat vehicles with a target tracking device with which the weapon can more easily be aligned by the gunner during the critical alignment phase with the aid of a signalling device and the time period between target recognition and direct-hit firing of the weapon can be shortened. This publication further indicates that the commander of an aircraft can take part in the aligning process effected by the gunner.
A target finding device attached to the weapon including an image amplifier tube or image converter tube is also known in the art, for example, see German Auslegeschrift (published patent application) No. 2,205,325, published Apr. 5, 1973.
These devices, however, are not suited for automatic target-finding for a top-mounted weapon in which the probability of a direct hit with the first shot is impeded by the elastic deformations of the supporting arm for the weapon which extends out of the top of the vehicle. That is, in contrast to a tubular weapon of the type to which the present invention is directed, with a weapon for a guided missile, as in the above-mentioned references, the elastic deformation of the supporting arm for the weapon is of no importance for hitting a target with the guided missile; rather it is important only for homing in of the missile after it has left the launching platform and has reached the field of view of the target optic.